In an effort to improve the living conditions of hospital patients residing at the Upper Valley Hostel on 17 South Street in Hanover, Dartmouth students have formed a new organization also called Upper Valley Hostel which aims to provide the hostel with important housework and fundraising services, according to UVH co-chair Justin Lee '11. The hostel accommodates long-term patients of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center who cannot afford to stay at a hotel while receiving treatment, Lee said.
"You're from two to three hours [away], you got some disease, you have to be there for five to six days in a row," he said at the group's first meeting on Tuesday. "You're either driving four hours a day to get treatment, you're paying 60 bucks a night for a hotel room, or you're sleeping in your car."
The organization will perform household tasks at the hostel, including home improvement projects, garden work and laundry, Lee said.
The hostel charges $15 per night and can house up to 16 guests, according to the hostel's web site.
"But if people don't have the money to pay for that, they just let them stay there," Nora Kim '12, co-chair of UVH, said.
Due to the low nightly rates, the hostel has difficulty covering costs, making volunteer work essential, Lee said.
"They always need fundraising the $15 barely, barely covers cost," he said. "Even if we just go out there and buy them toiletries, that would help a lot."
Besides performing housework and raising money for the hostel, the group also plans to work directly with the guests, the co-chairs said.
"There are patients sitting there bored out of their minds," Lee said. "We could go in there, cook them dinner, play games with them."
Cooking dinner for the guests is important because the hostel only provides them with breakfast, co-chair Claudia Cornejo '12 said.
While one of the organization's goals is to provide support to the hostel, UVH also wants to build the relationship between students and the community, according to Lee.
"There's definitely student need out there," he said. "A lot of pre-med kids love patient interaction. A lot of people want to volunteer but don't have the time to set up anything on their own."
Students who attended the meeting on Tuesday said they were looking for new community service options.
The organization's co-chairs said they planned to offer leadership positions to members of the Classes of 2012 and 2013 in hopes of continuing the group into the future.
"We will accommodate whatever you guys want to do," Lee said in the meeting. "Especially if you're a '13, this is something you could be doing two to three years from now."
Lee said he hoped Cornejo and Kim would continue the project during their sophomore summer this year.
Because UVH requires such little funding, the organization is relatively easy to maintain, according to Lee.
"[The Tucker Foundation is] going through a lot of changes right now," he said. "There's less money to go around, so stuff like this is great. We don't use cars, we don't need money, we just need a Blitz[Mail] account."
On Saturday, UVH will visit the hostel to help with garden work. Last week, volunteers mulched the garden, and this weekend they will continue to improve the landscape.
"The work that you do there is minimal, but it's absolutely necessary," Cornejo said.
